War: The Goodness of a Girl
by Tziput13
Summary: Bubbles is left alone for a short period of time, and the girl uses it to think about what happened to her and the reasons that brought her where she is. One-shot.


_This story is a test, as well as an experiment I've wanted to do for some months. Basically it's a series of one-shots where each entry is based off a different fandom, but they all share the same theme: how would these characters react if they were put in front of a war? Of the real kind?_

 _I already have basic drafts for two more stories, maybe three, but I can basically add another one when the idea comes to my mind anytime. The fanfictions will be completely independent from each other plot wise, and they won't share the same universe._

* * *

 _ **WAR**_

 **1**

" _ **The Goodness of a Girl"**_

* * *

 _Was what she was doing right?_

She didn't know. After three entire months of preparations, discussions with her sisters, and the formal acceptance of her new task, she _still_ didn't know. But, seriously, how could someone blame her?

Bubbles shifted her weight on the hard, concrete seat she was sitting on. She watched the various soldiers that were fast walking in front of her… women and men of various ages, but not a single one of them was as young as her. Well, it would have been weird the opposite: she was eleven years old, after all.

How could they be so sure, so calm about what they were doing? How could they give an answer to that question so easily?

 _She didn't know._ The fact was, she would have paid big money to have someone freeing her from the need of an answer to that simple yet terrible question. Indeed, she had been talking about it with anyone she had the chance to ask until now.

At first she hadn't been alone with her doubts. Bubbles remembered the faces of confusion and surprise that her and her sisters shared when the first unknown man knocked at their house. How they were _scared_ to see the Professor so mad at him, and this one simply answering by showing a piece of paper with something written on it. Scared, even when they did have superpowers.

A week later, the Professor told them that they needed to go. He didn't say why, not even when they asked him to, he just told them to go with the men dressed in military uniforms and to follow them in their van. Blossom, Buttercup and her attempted various protests to gain some type of information about what, why, and how. But most of all, they tried to convince him to not send them away.

It had been completely useless.

So, three seven years old girls were brought to a military barracks and set under heavy training. Bubbles had still fresh memories of the period spent in that place. She remembered clearly the long period she was left without superpowers, taken away by their new 'care-takers' for some long and complexly explained reason, with samples of Antidote X no one but their creator should have owned. She remembered how each day was a total nightmare for her. How their comrades and the instructors had no mercy for them, even when they were only very little girls at the time. She remembered nights passed crying along with both her sisters.

Then, after a period of time that was in theory two years, but for her had been like eternity, _they_ finally came to tell the Powerpuff Girls about what the heck was going on.

If she had known, she would have preferred not to know about it at all.

There was a General, someone she didn't even remember the name of at the moment. He told them about being courageous, that they were working for their country and their creator at the same time, and something else she had not paid attention to. Yet, when he actually said for the first time the word _'war',_ she at first believed she was hearing things.

That part of the speech, at her quick question, she remembered those words correctly: _Yes, Miss Utonium. We aren't in war yet, but we will soon, and we need you three ready to burst into action and change the outcome of it._

Yet, when she asked about it, about why they were going in war at that time, the General had shrugged it off with a generic: _You'll know about it, soon._ From that moment to today, Bubbles had acknowledged a number of things: who they were going to fight, their role in the conflict, and many more things. But that lone question had remained unanswered.

Buttercup at first wasn't convinced either, but soon the hothead began dreaming about epic fights with their new enemies and the glory she would gain from it. She was so fast at accepting their new role that Bubbles sometimes envied her for the easy way she had inserted herself in the new environment. Buttercup often told her than fighting in a war wasn't too different from being a superhero: you were still defending the people you loved, only you weren't doing it in front of their home. She treated her like a little sister during those moments: Bubbles knew that Buttercup was only trying to cheer her up and show her there wasn't nothing to worry about. But, no matter how hard the green puff tried, she had never been able to solve Bubbles' questions.

Blossom, on the other hand, had been even more doubtful than herself after the discussion with the General. She had been always smart, and she wasn't one to take these type of things lightly. Thus, Bubbles was surprised to see her smile brightly the morning after the discussion with the general. She told her she had realized why they were there, why what they were doing was right. The next half an hour was spent talking about politics, patriotism and some other concepts Bubbles wasn't sure a nine years old like they were should have known about. The fact was, when she exposed her doubts about them, Blossom became extremely irritable and said she should have realized it by that moment. Their argue became quite fierce at the time, and from that day Blossom had been different with both her and Buttercup, like she had put an invisible wall between them. She was no more like the Blossom she had been when they still were living with the Professor, and Bubbles was still far from finding out how that could have happened.

But still, both Blossom and Buttercup found an answer to that accursed question, to whether what they were going to do was good or bad. Bubbles _didn't._ She had been trying to find it for a long time, but when her sisters swore their ultimate and _true_ loyalty to the Army a month ago, Bubbles did something she hadn't done one time in her life. She lied, but not to any other person, that one she had already done plenty of times. She lied to _herself._

She told herself she would have understood the reason of the war. She told herself she would have fought side by side with her sisters with that precise idea making her advance. She told herself that she would have found a motif good to even kill people she didn't even know.

Bubbles still hated herself for that decision. And now here she was, sitting on a simple chair, waiting for her sisters to pick her up and go through the briefing, and after a quick preparation, _boom…_ their first mission in enemy territory. She had heard something about _them_ knowing about the Powerpuff Girls and creating special troops that had the sole purpose to counter the superheroes. She'd even heard something about Mojo Jojo, who had disappeared from Townsville after their departure, selling his advanced technology to the enemy. She didn't mind those things however, that was something they would have been informed of during the briefing. She had more important matters now, like destroying this internal problem of her before it was too late.

In the previous two years, Bubbles had often thought that her sisters were right after all. Blossom was loyal to her country, and Buttercup wanted to make something good for people at home. But what had prevented Bubbles to simply make those reasons hers was how they had been treated. And she wasn't thinking about the training. They weren't told of a _single thing_ until the very last moment, they had been kept ignorant for most of the time. And now they still didn't know all of it. Like, why the war had blown up in the first place. But no one had even tried to answer her, not in a sincere way at least. While she was only eleven years old now, she had been educated for a long period in a military barracks and if there was something she had learnt from that inferno, it was to not believe everything they told you.

When she had asked her sisters or other fellow soldiers about it… they more or less gave her the same answers. But those weren't enough. She needed to know that this war was right. She needed someone who told her "Those people are evil and don't want nothing but the destruction of your hometown, so go get'em!". Fighting the villains in Townsville was another question, they were evil and needed to be stopped, and that was all… But what about enemy soldiers? Hadn't they families at home? Had they the same doubts she shared? Weren't they fighting for the same reasons all the soldiers, including her sisters, were?

It was so painful to just think about it that Bubbles put a hand on her front, feeling a headache. And that, the thought of a family, brought her to one of the worst issues of her current life: the Professor.

She had been asking to see him from the very first day she had been brought away from him four years ago, and she didn't even know if he was alive now, given the fact it seemed like the man had disappeared from the planet. Blossom and Buttercup during their first days supported her, but after their change of mind they acted like they had been able to _forget_ about him. It was something that Bubbles was still far from believing: when she asked her, Blossom began a lecture of ten minutes about 'bad thoughts are going to lead you to the wrong path'. Buttercup on the other hand shared her worry to an extent, but only that. She said she was sure there was some good motif they couldn't see or even find him, but for Bubbles that explanation wasn't enough.

Oh, why was she even trying? It was useless. She was going into a battle without even be certain of the righteousness of it, and she couldn't do nothing about it. Yes, she had thought about just waking up in the night and use the powers, which had previously returned to her, to escape from the war and look for the Professor. But it would have meant to leave her sisters alone in the heart of the conflict, something she couldn't just do, even when they were so far from each other. Bubbles cringed when she remembered about them in their early days far from home, dreaming about an epic getaway that was simply impossible with their broken spirits.

How could they know they hadn't been used like pawns until that moment? She had once heard about 'the effects the new three super-weapons were going to have on the morale of the enemy'. Was that all they cared about? Were they only _weapons_ of mass destruction?

Bubbles felt a new emotion rising inside her, but the blonde girl suffocated it before it could explode. Letting out the anger would have been disastrous for both her and her sisters, and she wasn't letting it take control of her.

The girl, dressed in a special military uniform with a semi-transparent blue stripe on the left arm, clenched her eyes shut and made long breaths for some seconds. When she opened them, she found her vision blurry.

Yeah, she was crying again, and she couldn't do a single thing about it. Umph, good soldier she was. But still…

"Professor…" Bubbles whispered in a tone audible to no one but herself "Where are you… I need your help… I need you to answer my doubts, to tell me what I'm doing is right… Please Professor… Plea-…"

"Bubbles!"

Bubbles acted instantly, standing up and saluting like a perfect soldier "Sir, yessir!"

Buttercup only snickered in response, "Hey, I'm not Blossom you know. C'mon, we're the only ones left to get in the brief room. I've been waiting for this for a long time, Bubbles, aren't you excited?"

"Yes, we'll finally be able to make those fools out there realize who's the real boss!" Bubbles spat back, showing her best smile. Her lying abilities had largely improved.

"That's what I want to hear! Brother, for a moment I thought you were crying there…"

"Oh, well, I was crying, yes, but only because I was laughing about how I'll have to save your butt on the battlefield!"

"Ah! Look who's talking! We shall see, Bubs!"

Continuing to exchange words and jokes, Bubbles and Buttercup continued to walk away, while the former resigned herself to her destiny…

 **END**


End file.
